Parallel

head toward the circulation desk, which, fitting with the cathedral theme, looks like an altar. The librarian looks up as I approach.
    “Hello there,” she says. “May I help you?”
    “Hi . . . I’m, uh—”
    She politely cuts me off. “A freshman.” I look as clueless as I feel, apparently. “Freshmen are the only students who come to the library during shopping period,” she explains with a kind smile. “Is this your first time to SML?” I nod. She reaches under the desk and pulls out a library map. “Then you’ll probably need one of these,” she says, sliding the map across the desk. “Library policies are on the back.”
    I scan the map. “Where’s the best place for me to go?”
    “Depends on how much privacy you want,” she replies. “There are five reading rooms on this level, a couple more scattered throughout the rest of the main building, and half a dozen study carrels on each level of the stacks.”
    “The stacks?”
    The librarian points to the map in my hands. “Our fifteen floors of books. If you’re looking for privacy, that’s your best bet.”
    “And how do I . . .”
    She turns to her computer and types a few keys. “All I’ll need is your ID card to reserve a carrel,” she tells me. I hand it to her. She scans the bar code, then gives it back to me. “All set. Carrel 3M-06.” She leans over and draws a red X on my library map, then points to her left, to another security guard station. “Just show the guard your ID.”
    “Carrel,” I soon learn, is the library’s euphemism for the ridiculously tiny cubicles with plastic sliding doors that line the interior walls of the building. While I’m waiting for my laptop to boot up, I close my eyes and go over the last twenty-four hours in my mind, attempting to recall every detail of last night’s events. Could Bret have slipped me something? But why would he drug me and take me to Yale? And if I just got here last night, how does Marissa have a photo of me that was supposedly taken last week, and why is there a student ID card with my name and picture on it?
    I sigh, opening my eyes just as my computer finishes booting up. Any uncertainty about whose laptop this is disappears when I see the home screen. The background image is a picture of Caitlin, Tyler, and me, standing on the Brookside football field, wearing caps and gowns and grinning like we just won the Super Bowl. It’s a graduation photo, obviously. But where did it come from? I missed graduation. I was already in L.A. by then, doing preproduction for the movie. Saturday, June 6, 2009. I remember calling Caitlin that afternoon to see how it went.
    How is there a picture of me at graduation if I wasn’t there?
    I stare at the photograph, trying to remember that moment, but I can’t. I have absolutely no recollection of being there, which makes sense, because I WASN’T. All of a sudden, I’m annoyed. Annoyed that whatever is going on has made me doubt my sanity, made me doubt reality. I have been in Los Angeles, living at the Culver Hotel, shooting a movie with Bret Woodward since May. That I know. That I remember. That’s what’s real.
    Right?
    Confronted with inconsistencies I can’t explain, I jump into journalist mode. I’ll fact-check my life the way I’d fact-check a newspaper article, starting with the movie I’ve spent the last four months shooting. I launch my web browser, which redirects to a secure log-in screen for the Yale network, with boxes for my student ID number and password. Undeterred, I pull out my ID card and examine it. Under the bar code is a ten-digit number, which has to be my student ID number. I type the numbers into the top box. Now for the harder part: the password. I’ve been using the same password since we read Through the Looking Glass in seventh grade.
    I type w-o-n-d-e-r-l-a-n-d into the password box and hold my breath as I click the log-in button. A few seconds later, the log-in screen disappears.
    I’m in.
    Buoyed, I type the words “Everyday Assassins movie” into the search bar and hit enter. The top hit tells me what I want to know. Directed by Alain Bourneau and starring Bret Woodward, Everyday Assassins is a high-octane thriller about a renegade military sniper and his band of teenage assassins. I scroll down. Bret’s name is right where I expect it to be, at the top of the lengthy cast list. The next three names are all ones I recognize. So far everything is exactly as I remember it. I keep scrolling,